Nature: 4 Areas of Action

Here are 4 areas where you can put TRUTH to ACTION:

1.Think differently. Open up to the possibility of thinking outside of Darwinism. This includes thinking beyond opposites and binaries, beyond stereotypes and generalities. Take time to look at nuance, greater and greater inclusion, what erasure if any is functioning and if and how context influences things. Try looking at things from new and larger perspectives. For example, it’s not about ‘understanding or explaining gender.’ It’s about looking at everything and seeing how gender is naturally expressed everywhere all the time around us.

2.Speak truth. Open up to new ways of speaking that reflect an expanded understanding of nature and gender. For example, stop saying ‘boys and girls’ and instead say people or kids. Become aware of more and more gender assumptions. For example, excusing boys for physically rough behavior while assuming or encouraging girls to be less physical or physically smaller. And so on.

3.Interrupt falsehoods. Speaking truth is awesome, but it has to be coupled with interrupting untruths or it has no power. We must also take the time to say what is not true and acknowledge that almost everything around us is saying these untrue things about nature and gender, but that doesn’t make them anymore true. If we don’t model this for our kids, no one will. We can embrace the truth about nature now. Some simple examples are kid movies. Speaking the truth about Clown Fish, bears, snails, whales, and so on. Snails are not girls or boys. Some lizards are lesbians. Some animals are both girl and boy.

4.Educate toward truth/children’s books and adult resources. These are what I consider my absolute basics to date.